14 taurants, night clubs, hotel grills, etc. Some days ago such a program was broadcast from Y oeng's Chinese res- taurant. Whoever got up the pro- gram (and it wasn't Y oeng's) includ- ed in it the popular dance piece of a dozen years ago, "The Japanese Sand- man." A crooner crooned it to the accompanimen t of the orchestra: "Here's the Japanese san-n-ndman," right there in a Chinese restaurant. Well, the radio people heard about it from everybody, from Mr. Yoeng him- self down to the waiters. Uncle Sam W E ducked in out of the storm one afternoon and found ourself in an umbrella shop in West Forty-fifth Street. (We had been intending for a long time to duck in there but, until this occasion, a storm hadn't found us in that part of town.) It's quite a famous place, run by one Sam Simon, who calls himself Uncle Sam because it sounds friendly. Uncle Sam does a thriving business in nothing but can.es, umbrellas, riding crops, and whips; and he meets interesting people. He made an umbrella in the shape of an igloo for Sir Hubert Wilkins to take to the North Pole, the idea being that you would throw snow on top of the umbrella and there you'd have an igloo, big enough for four men to sleep under. He makes Charlie Chaplin's canes, and has for years. They have to be made out of a thin, very flexible Chinese wood known as wanghee, and Charlie can break them about as fast as Sam can make them. Fifteen wanghee sticks were destroyed in filming "City Lights," for instance. Eddie Cantor is using one of Sam's Scotch canes, the knobby kind, in his present act at the Palace. Joe Cook's trick umbrella that supplied its own rain was Sam's product. Making it gave the whole Simon family a good time. Its stem was a hollow tube con- nected with a hot-water bottle to be concealed under Joe's vest. When he pressed his arm down, the water spurted up and fell like a shower. Un- cle Sam takes pleasure in such comical business. Occasionally, along comes a real nifty order, like the time Preston Sturges, the playwright (most of Sam's in teresting customers are theatrical) , presented his entire cast with canes. That was nice, too. Sam says the most amusing cane he ever constructed was for a Negro actor, a snappy dresser. This gentle- man insisted that he desired a black e bony walking stick, "studious with rhinestones." Sam made him a won- derful object, and reports later came back from Harlem that it was a big success in Lenox A venue. Special orders sometimes run into real money-such as the cane Sam made out of the horn of a rhinoceros, for three hundred dollars. There are, in his shop, canes to be had fitted with cigar-lighters, flasks, and one with the head of a Chinaman, w hose eye winks when you pull his queue. Every month Sam says he sells about ten or twelve innocent-looking canes with hollow centres. These are fi tted with blackjacks, for resisting ruffians. Another steady seller is the - \.0 Iii "Sunday, April fifth, was the last the chtldren and I ever saw of him." DECEMDE.I\ 12., 19 1 "reducing cane" -made of lead cov- ered with ostrich skin. Paunchy men carry them for their health-it's like having a pair of dumb-bells always along. The hardest kind of natural cane to get is a very fine full-bark, un- jointed n1alacca. An exceptionally fine one is worth one hundred and fifty dollars, but only a connoisseur can tell you why. Professional Pride N OW that Al Capone is safely be- hind bars there's no reason for not telling why he was never recorded in the talkies, like all the other big shots of the day. The fact is he nearly was, and the thing fell through only at the last moment. Some months ago one of tÌ1e enterprising newsreel companies had the idea; diplomatic overtures were made through Mr. Capone's represen- tatives, and word was returned that Mr. Capone was agreeable. Probably thought he owed it to the youth of the land. At the appointed hour, Capone turned up at the company's studio, in Tenth ...f\venue here, accompanied only by an alert little gentleman, his lawyer. One of the officials of the company re- ceived them in his office. After in- troductions and appropriate greetings, the movie man remarked jovially: "If you gentlemen will park your guns here, we'll go into the recording- room." Quick as a flash, the lawyer was on his feet. "l'vi y client did not come here to be insulted," he snapped. He and Mr. Capone departed abruptly. Young Lady Is Born W E got up at six o'clock last Sat- urday (morning, mind you!) to go to the launching of the S. S. l'vIan- hattan at Camden, New Jersey. Three hundred people arrived at the Pennsyl- vania Station around seven-thirty and boarded a special train. Captain Cun- ningham, former master of the Levia- than, was there. He's a landlubber now and he looked rather odd in civil- ian clothes, but his cheeks are still red from many winds and he squints as if he were looking at the sun. The train got to Camden in two hours and pull- ed up a few hundred feet from the big hulk of the new merchantman, the largest ever built in America. Length, seven hundred and five feet. There was little delay. The ship, wearing its first coat of paint-a bright orange-red-started down the ways only ten minutes late. l'virs. Roosevelt,